A New Coffee Shop in Harrogate

(Posted onNovember 2, 2018)

We’re happy to announce that at some point in November there’s going to be a new coffee shop in Harrogate. As we’re sure many of you will have guessed it’s going to be located next to our existing site on Oxford Street.

We can almost hear the groans from the likes of Harrogate Grumbler already – “Oh great another coffee shop in Harrogate, just what we need.” and that’s fair enough. Retail in Harrogate town centre is under pressure, as it is everywhere, and leisure has been plugging the gaps for some time. We do however hope that lots of our existing and former guests will find this to be happy news.

We say it’ll be a new coffee shop because there isn’t initially going to be an internal connection between the two sites. We’ll operate the two spaces separately from when we open in November until early 2019 and during that period we’ll be testing and refining our systems and then be able make some data driven decisions on how we move forward.

It is possible to knock an opening through from the top of the stairs in the existing site that will come out in the back of the new site uniting the two. Combining the units is a decision we’ll take in January.

A new coffee shop in Harrogate

How’s it going to work?

The Cafe | The Coffee Shop

We’re going to have two different sides available for guests. In the existing site, we’ll refer to it as ‘The Cafe’, we’ll remove the bar area and replace it with two more 2 seater tables. This side will offer our current menu entirely unchanged.

The new site will have a smaller offer. It’ll provide our existing hot/cold drinks as well as cakes/pastries but at this stage it will not offer any of our food menu.

Capacity

The new site will be able to sit up to 19 guests including three seats at the existing window bar, which opens fully across the width of the shop during the Summer months.

Opening Hours

Our opening hours will initially be 10am-4pm daily, because outside of those times we rarely have issues with capacity in the existing cafe.

Coffee

We’re going to mirror our existing coffee setup in this new space so we’ll be able to ensure that the quality of coffee is the same from either side. In busy periods it offers a greater capability to serve coffee at a faster pace by splitting the workload. This should mean that you get served quicker (because there will be an extra till) and your coffee should arrive faster too. We also hope it’ll go some way to relieving the pressure in the circulation space around the existing till during peak times.

Access

Access has always been a problem in the existing site, but we’re very happy to say that the new site has level access and an accessible toilet so we’ll be able to welcome guests with disabilities much more easily. We’ll be happy to serve our full menu to disabled guests in this site.

Decor

Designing the space is always one of the most enjoyable parts of a new project like this so we are really looking forward to pressing on with our ideas. This new space will feature a more modern look than the current site with lighter wood shades and colours combined with practical functional finishes that should stand up to heavy use.

From Early 2019

If we go ahead with the work to combine the two units be creating a public opening and also a service opening (via the existing kitchen) it does allow us to consider some additional options.

Waffle Parties

Shorter opening hours does give us the opportunity to use the space for other things and the first one of those things we have in mind is for waffle parties. We’ve never really had the space to be able to offer bookings but now we will.

We’re due to host the Imagined Things book club in November (read more here) and if we’re open in time we’ll likely hold this event on the new site.

The Breakfast Club

We’ll have a really nice space, first class coffee and access to some a delicious breakfast/brunch menu. If any organisations or groups wanted to hold meetings/events in our space prior to 10am we’ll be able to offer this as an affordable and private option.